Proposed ordinance targets yellow pages in Seattle

Seattleites would have the option to “opt out” out of Yellow Page phonebooks under legislation introduced in the City Council Tuesday.

The proposed measure, backed by Councilman Mike O’Brien, would direct the city’s Public Utilities department to establish the registry. City officials would then share that information with phone book publishers and direct them not to drop the books off at those homes and businesses. In addition, a to-be-determined “recovery fee” would be imposed on phone books to help cover the costs of collecting and recycling excess books. Revenue from the fee would be deposited in the city’s Solid Waste fund.

During a committee discussion Tuesday, some Councilmembers worried that the implementation and enforcement of the registry could be unduly burdensome for the Public Utilities department.

But environmental groups praised the idea.

“Reducing the amount of phone books in production could save the city money,” Brady Montz of the Sierra Club said in a statement. “In Seattle, phone books create about 2,231 tons of waste and cost as much as $600,000 in disposal fees each year.”

Neg Norton, president of the Yellow Pages Association, had this to say in a statement about O’Brien’s idea:

“We share the City Council’s goal of ensuring that phone books are available to people who want them while offering residents an option to stop delivery if they choose….The ordinance as currently proposed adds unnecessary government bureaucracy and imposes unfair fees on companies that help small businesses market themselves and that contribute significant taxes to the local economy. We hope council members will consider a number of concerns regarding this ordinance:

“It is unnecessary for the city to take on the responsibility, at taxpayer expense, of managing a duplicative opt-out system when programs that let Seattle residents stop directory delivery already exist. Residents can visit www.yellowpagesoptout.com to get information on how to opt-out of directory delivery to their homes.

“Calls to include opt-out postcards attached to directory covers would create new paper waste in the city, defeating the purpose of the industry’s waste reduction efforts.

“There are no provisions for a person to get their address off the registry. Once an address is “blacklisted” there is no mechanism for a new resident at that address to receive a directory.

“Proposed fees that single out publishers unfairly put our business, and our small business customers, at a competitive disadvantage against other advertising media.”